DOJ’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is involved in the investigation of Clark, since he was a DOJ employee at the time. In June, the home of Jeffrey Clark - the official Trump tried to put in charge of DOJ, so he could enlist the Department in declaring the election results fraudulent - was searched by federal agents. “Our prosecutors are looking at those, and I can’t say anything more on ongoing investigations,” Monaco said.īy May, the investigation had subpoenaed many close Trump aides for documents and was asking specifically for info about lawyers who had tried to help him overturn the election. This was Trump allies’ effort to name Trump supporters as electors in key swing states Biden won, and to have their purported electoral votes submitted to Congress and Vice President Mike Pence and effectively dispute the actual electors’ votes. But just a week and a half after that article, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco confirmed an investigation into one aspect of Trump’s scheme: fake electors. In January 2022, the Washington Post reported that “so far the department does not appear to be directly investigating” Trump. About a year ago, this team was “given the green light by the Justice Department to take a case all the way up to Trump, if the evidence leads them there,” according to a recent CNN article. We now know that a team of prosecutors began more intensely scrutinizing Trump and his associates in the fall of 2021. So an investigation into him does not appear to have begun immediately. Initially, there wasn’t really a consensus in the political world about whether Trump had actually committed crimes with his web of lies about the election. The Justice Department’s larger investigation into the January 6 attacks has been going on since they happened, focusing first on the people who actually stormed the Capitol. The state of the investigation into Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election The main question now seems to be who will get there first. And in Georgia, Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, is also weighing whether to charge Trump relating to his effort to overturn Biden’s win in the state, after a special grand jury wrapped up its work in January. Bragg’s New York grand jury is weighing whether to charge Trump with falsifying business records to conceal his repayment of his attorney, Michael Cohen, for $130,000 in hush money paid to Daniels. Separately, two state investigations into Trump are fairly advanced. There could be many more twists and turns ahead. Trump likely can’t be stopped from continuing his 2024 presidential run except by voters, but despite talk of his recent political woes, he continues to lead almost every poll of a multi-candidate GOP field. A trial or trials would follow, as would many legal challenges from Trump’s team (some perhaps before sympathetic judges). Still, if a federal indictment does happen, it would not be the end of the story - far from it. And over a year ago, a federal judge opined that Trump’s effort to steal the election amounted to criminal lawbreaking. Trump has lost the sitting president’s immunity from prosecution (per Justice Department policy). But there are reasons this time may be different. It may feel like Trump has been investigated for years, and that those investigations always lead nowhere. Further appeals are possible there, so it’s not clear how quickly this testimony will happen. Meanwhile, in Smith’s 2020 election investigation, district judges ordered testimony from several former Trump administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, rejecting claims of executive privilege. According to ABC News, the special counsel is arguing Trump “knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified materials after leaving office.” Trump challenged that in court, but lost, and Corcoran’s testimony went forward on Friday. Typically, such interactions would be shielded from investigators due to attorney-client privilege - but Smith’s team invoked the “crime-fraud exemption,” arguing that the conversations involved the commission of a crime. What will this mean for Trump’s 2024 campaign?.
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